HF 38 Niagara Intel Socket 1366

Aah yes, Niagara... this cooling block must be a waterfall then! So in the past we have used several items from Alphacool already, and Alphacool was one of the first out there to have a water-block ready for Nehalem socket 1366 processors (Core i7).

This company has a strong development team really, as they research water-flow, dynamics and everything that is going on inside that water-block to ensure heat dissipation is optimal and efficient.

For Core i7 they now offer several selections in water-blocks, the newest one is the HF 38 Niagara Intel Socket 1366 as tested today. A cooling block like this, combined with a proper water-cooling setup, should get our Core i7 965 processor to ~3.7 GHz easily, well in fact we have it running stable and fairly nicely cool at 4 GHz already, but we'll tell you more on that in our tests.

The all new CPU block is a shiny golden/brass design, it offers really high flow performance as it's now using 3/8" threaded fittings on the block itself.

Also, inside we spot six return flow channels which provide for quick removal of warm water. The nozzle pre-chamber and the return flow range are dimensioned on maximum values, which match perfectly the differently sized inner diameters of the tubing. Flow performance of the block is now set at up to 5,3 liters/min. Now I know some of you can drink beer faster than that, but trust me... it's a lot :)

The fastening system also got an upgrade, the springs are now hidden behind brass pipes, fitted to the core diameter and pressed by a knurled nut.

According to Alphacool the design has been carried out with massive 18mm thick POM, a 4mm strong brass mounting plate and a 1,5mm thick brass plate for visual enhancement. The brass parts are permanently protected with clear lacquer against starting and casting.

Characteristics overview:

3/8" connecting thread for high flow up to 5,3 liters per minute

Direct vertical water supply into the centered incorporated pre-chamber. From there the cooling liquid is purposefully targeted at the radiator base, without water bend loss.

Alphacool HF 38 Niagara Intel Core i7 CPU water block reviewThere aren't that many companies out there that offer liquid cooling products which you can purchase separately. There's a handful of them. One of them is the German based Alphacool. Recently they introduced a new CPU block called the Alphacool HF 38 Niagara. This new water-block is designed for Socket 1366 processor, aka Nehalem aka Core i7. A high-end liquid cooling CPU block priced fairly. Let's check it out.

Alphacool NexXxoS XP Core i7 water block reviewIn this article we test the Alphacool NexXxoS XP HIGHFLOW Core i7 CPU water block. We will apply a nearly passive water-cooling kit to it and observe installation and temperatures. Since we could take a Core i7 965 processor up towards an overclock of 4 GHz we'd say this ia a very succesful product from the guys over at Alphacool.

AlphaCool External 240x128 DisplayToday we are testing this cute External LCD-Display with the colossal 240x128 Pixel dimensions. Now that by itself is cool, but the software controlling the unit is where the magic happens. You can display pretty much any system info, yet it goes way beyond that. RivaTuner is supported, Fraps, Mainboard Monitor (MBM), SpeedFan and it does not stop there.

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Pretty much install your components and you are good to go. The beauty of this beast is the fact that it is passive water-cooling, the only thing connected to the power circuit is an inaudible pump. That means this system just does not make any noise, at least not that we can hear.